Agnodice (4th century BCE)

Agnodice (sometimes known as Agnodike) is a legendary figure credited as the first female midwife or physician in ancient Athens. Her story is told by the Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus in his Fabulae. Agnodice is not generally believed to be a historical figure, but her story has been frequently deployed as a precedent for women practising midwifery or medicine, or as an argument against either of these.

According to Hyginus, Agnodice studied medicine under Herophilus, and worked as a physician in her home city of Athens disguised as a man, because women at the time were forbidden from practicing medicine. As her popularity with female patients grew, rival physicians accused her of seducing the women of Athens. She was tried, and revealed her sex to the jury by lifting her tunic (a gesture known in ancient Greek as anasyrmos). Accused of illegally practicing medicine as a woman, she was defended by the women of Athens who praised her for her effective treatments. She was acquitted, and the law against female physicians in Athens was revoked.

Known for
The story of Agnodice has been invoked since the sixteenth century to provide precedents for a range of gender options within the medical profession. See "Influence on women in medicine" in Wikipedia

Find more
Wikipedia "Agnodice: reading the story" brief by Helen King, from in her 2013 book, The One-Sex Body on Trial : The Classical and Early Modern Evidence